Brave New World
by the birdster
Summary: On a particularly foul Tuesday night, Naruto, a nice guy with an unlucky streak, stumbles upon a cheap, lackluster necklace. Now he's Death, and one unwilling vampire, Uchiha Sasuke, shows him the ropes. AU, Sasunaru
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Brave New World

**Chapter:** 1/whoknows

**Genre: **Romance. Humor, 'cause I'm terrible at writing it but I love it to death. ;D And... drama.

**Summary: **[Sasunaru] [AU] Naruto, a nice guy with an unfortunate unlucky streak, stumbles upon a cheap, inexplicably twinkling necklace after escaping three murder attempts at his life. Now he's Death, and one unwilling vampire, Uchiha Sasuke, shows him the ropes.

**Warnings:** _ohmigawd! thz iz sooooo gay. ur a fag and jeyzuz h8ts u._ Couple of boys smoochin' each other isn't your thing? :D Chalk yourself up to that lovely person's commentary; I enjoy throwing smarmy comments at'cha.

... I also think I abuse italics, and that I go way too fast through action scenes. D: I'll let you be the judge.

ALSO: copious amounts of swearing. Because... that just strikes me as something that'd fit Naruto's character.

**Note:** Hooboy, this thing's been bouncing around my head since April of 2007 when my darling friend lent me Christopher Moore's amazing piece of literature, _A Dirty Job_. That man gets all the credit for this pointless piece of fanfiction; he is my inspiration. :3

_YES,_ Sasuke's a vampire. It's overdone, but this is my twist on it.

This story was supposed to be complete before I posted it, but I can't wait anymore. D:

**NEWS YEAR'S RESOLUTION**: FINISH WHAT YOU START.

Mmyeah. We'll see how long _that_ lasts.

Anyway - I have no beta, so, this is entirely thought, written and edited by yours truly. (please, uh, be kind with that thought in mind).

Enjoy! :D

* * *

**Brave New World**

**

* * *

**

Naruto _despised_ Tuesdays.

He had always been aware of the black cloud of misfortune that constantly hovered above him and knew, almost intimately, of its wily ways of deterring him from the path of happiness. It had introduced itself one Tuesday morning during a rainstorm - an unfortunate day that Naruto does not remember because he lost his two front teeth, got struck by lightning, and misplaced his favorite shoe (with the smiley face shoelaces) all in the same soccer game. That day landed an eight year-old Naruto in a hospital that suffered a power failure minutes before his arrival; Naruto almost lost his life because there was nothing to sustain it. His father, hysterical, killed himself and two others - his best friend and his best friend's mother - while gunning the brand new silver _Avalon_ fifty miles over the speed limit, trying to get to Naruto (consequentially, the car was totaled). His mother went missing overnight (a scuba diver found her corpse two years later in the polluted lake bordering the town, and Naruto faced a lawsuit that claimed he owed the diver thousands to cover the man's emotional damage therapy). His parents' savings went to his greedy uncle Mizuki because a will had never been written, and he was dumped into a dreary little orphanage that had been forgotten by the city.

Restated: Naruto _despised_ Tuesdays.

The stupid cloud that Naruto blamed for his very existence never dissipated as he grew up; his bad luck streak merely became a watered down version. Disaster still clung to Naruto better than his shadow.

For instance: Naruto knew never to order eggs because he'd get eggshells stuck in his teeth, he knew never to gamble with jaywalking because it was predictable down to the _second_ when a car that had lost its breaks would careen around the corner, he knew not to walk alone at night because people with sticky fingers tended to gravitate toward him and snag something off his person (usually he lost his wallet; once, a fingernail), and he knew _never_ to work retail on Tuesdays. He only cooked with hot water from the spigot (anything electrical started the house on fire), he slogged through rain, wind and snow to his destination to avoid being a hostage at gunpoint on public transportation, and he _always_ put his mirrors face down come Halloween, in case any more hallucinations of ghosts clawing from the other side of the glass, screaming for help, occurred.

All these things came to Naruto through experience. But there was one thing that stuck out more than his untamable hair - Naruto knew, above all else, not to anger, annoy, or give any inclination of betrayal to a woman. Girlfriends were no exception.

"_GODDAMN YOU, NARUTO!_"

Naruto ducked as a modestly decorated vase smashed above his head. He felt the shards graze his scalp, but he was too terrified to swipe them off; Sakura was much scarier than the prospect of severe blood loss.

"S-Sakura," Naruto stammered, lips quirking into a tentative smile, "baby, why would you--"

"DO NOT BABY ME," roared the pink grenade, and Naruto was forced to launch himself into the adjacent hallway to avoid a wine glass - a _crystal_ wine glass, Naruto thought painfully - as it crushed itself against the wall. His elbow throbbed reproachfully as Sakura armed herself with the twin of the shattered goblet. They were her anniversary present, given just twenty-two minutes ago. _Seems like it's been the second cold war,_ Naruto thought dazedly. He scrambled to find words that would appease the inflamed woman, who was decreasing the distance between them at an alarming pace.

"Sakura! I-I've never looked _twice_ at another woman--"

Sakura ignored his plea for innocence. "What does _Ino_ have that I don't? _Huh?"_ Sakura was squeezing her fists so hard Naruto was afraid for the safety of his teeth. "Is it her breasts?"

"Wha-why would that--?"

"Is it her _hair?_"

"No, Sakura, you're _gorge--_"

"It's the _sex,_ isn't it?" she raged, quivering with anger. She had charged so far into Naruto's personal space he had retreated to the opposing wall - but now he was cornered, and errantly confused.

Sakura was never like this. Sakura was always sweet and kind, always smiling, always equipped with band-aids, always ready to hear both sides of the story. And, sure, he'd received a few mighty blows to the head occasionally, but Naruto couldn't remember a time when Sakura had gotten this angry - an almost savage quality - nor could he remember ever seeing her face twisted into such a horribly unkind expression. If he had allowed himself to indulge the thought, Naruto might've said Sakura's expression reminded him of one of his terrifying hallucinations in the mirror last Friday (the 13th).

She was coming closer. Panicked, Naruto dove onto his remaining option: sweet-talking. "Sakura, honey," he tried a soft tone to calm her, "I haven't cheated on you--"

"_BULLSHIT."_ Naruto barely avoided the remaining glass grenade. "Why the hell were you three hours late, Naruto, if you weren't with Ino? Do you - do you really think I'm that _stupid?_ That I wouldn't _figure it out?"_ Naruto could only gape as Sakura stopped her march forward, crying, wiping her eyes with dangerously clenched fists. "P-People have been _calling_, Naruto, saying such awful things - but, b-but they told me where you've been and I _saw _you and - and I'm so..."

Naruto had no idea what she was talking about. _Seen _him? She said it like it was evidence to a crime. He hadn't done anything even _remotely_ suspicious. What was--

And it was almost like a second personality overtook her; Sakura's eyes sharpened, her teeth made a reappearance, and the crying ceased.

"I knew it was a bad idea to date you, I _knew it," _Sakura snarled. "You son-of-a-bitch, you _snake,_ I _hate_ you--"

Desperate, Naruto cried, "But Sakura! I _love_ you!"

His hands were balanced unpleasantly on shards of glass, which greedily sunk into the soft flesh of his palms and would've made normal men howl. But Naruto's attention was fully focused on his girlfriend's shaking and crying form. Her fists were clenched tightly, her hair stuck messily to her tearstained cheeks, and her dull green eyes - eyes he used to proclaim undying love to - were filled with a cold dismissal.

"Get out."

As Naruto shakily rose from his caged position, a snide little voice in the back of his head told him he should've been expecting something like this. He shouldn't've crossed the town _in a taxi -_ number one mistake - because the cabby was, of course, an emotional roller coaster, and Naruto, being a good soul, couldn't just walk away when the guy was sobbing his heart out in Naruto's arms. Really, the voice snipped, cleaning its fingernails, you should've chanced Sakura's rage _without_ a present.

But Naruto hadn't. After dropping the snoozing cabby off at the clinic, he ran the last leg to the crystal dealer, paid for the hand-cut, customized goblets, and even went to far as to barter with the subway to make it back to her.

He quietly shuffled past Sakura's stone body - oddly still from the amount of emotion that had just coursed through her - reached for his car keys on the wooden divider and paused. Her anniversary card was propped open, the scribbled _I luv yoo!_ burning its cheery message into Naruto's retina. He turned away, walked the few steps to the door he'd never gotten around to paint the shade of yellow he'd imagined, and stopped once more.

Naruto took one last look at Sakura, whose back was still stiffly facing him, before stepping out into the crisp January air, quietly shutting the door behind him.

* * *

It reminded him just how fragile his happiness was.

Naruto kicked a crumpled soda can angrily, fists buried in his ratty coat pockets. _Figures it's a goddamn Tuesday,_ Naruto groused, burrowing deeper inside his trusty old coat as another gust of wind slunk down his collar. It'd also figure Naruto only knew of one person - the very same one whom he had been accused of _sleeping_ with, of all things - with a vacant couch, and she (_of course!_) lived on the other side of a town currently facing a small crisis.

Public transportation was closed after midnight because of the innumerable amount of people that vanished without a trace on the dark city streets; police were baffled, and people superstitious. Rumors were running around of cackles hissing from dirty drainpipes and sounds of scratching claws and rustling feathers echoing in shadowy alleyways. Some of the witnesses (with, at best, dubious qualifications) claimed they'd seen a man with more piercings than a tattoo artist, a figure wearing a basketball on his head and, they'd continue in terrified whispers (in the local gag newspaper), that another one was _eating_ a corpse; the blood was like, _thick,_ man, and we were like, _whoa! _And it was _totally_ not sweet.

Naruto thought it all wannabe-vampire nonsense - or the slight possibility that his bad luck could metastasize into entire _metropolises_ - but he couldn't stop the shudder from scuttling down his spine as he hurried past one such gloomy back street. He had put a good twelve miles between his - _Now Sakura's_, he thought ruefully - apartment and himself, and was well into white Suburbia, but friendly neighborhoods by day turned _damn_ creepy at night.

Ino was still miles away. Naruto trudged unhappily forward, pointedly ignoring the black cat that blinked intelligent eyes from a rooftop, ignoring the shadows that wriggled into inhumanoid shapes and waved at him - ignoring everything but his cold body. But Naruto (who was also ignoring the fact that the cheery lane had been ablaze with lights minutes before he began strolling down it; everything was pitch-black now) could not dismiss his feet.

It was the strangest sensation; Naruto's feet always numbed and tingled moments before something catastrophic happened to him. Doctors had said it was an aftereffect of the lightning strike that hit when he was a kid; don't worry about it, we can't do anything for you anyway. But after he'd been sucker punched in the face by an old woman who was actually an undercover agent and accused of pirating a multimillion dollar computer software program (when the guy next to him had, unbeknownst to Naruto, slipped the CD containing it into his manpurse), served three months in jail - effectively missing his college finals - _and_ fallen down a flight of stairs with a lollypop in his mouth - which punctured a hole straight through his palate and almost caused permanent brain damage (some argued it did) - with all incidents occurring moments after his feet began to tingle, Naruto was convinced. It was a warning, and it was the only one he got.

So Naruto turned back toward the last sooty alleyway he'd shuffled past and took a wary second look.

A narrow, shiny street with a few leftover raindrops dripping from the shingles and a messy patchwork of tar was all that greeted him. It was just an alley, nothing suspicious about it. Naruto quickly glanced up - a huge cookbook had fallen out of a three-story window and crashed on top of his head once - and saw nothing but storm clouds. He relaxed, chastising himself for being such a fraidy-cat. _Seriously, Naruto,_ he chided, turning around._ What were you expec--_

And then suddenly the air was too heavy to suck in, his legs refused to support him and he buckled. Naruto's palms slapped the wet pavement to halt his descent, but he still couldn't breathe and his mind was reeling - _what the fuck?_ - and someone was screeching in delight nearby. It was like gravity had been amplified ten times; it _hurt_ to inhale.

He could feel their presence more than see - Naruto could've easily passed as blind, as he was unable to make out anything in front of his nose. The numbness had spread to his ankles and Naruto could only swallow what little saliva was left in his mouth as footsteps ricocheted off the compact walls. His mind bleated; _what the fuck?_

One disembodied voice said, "This was too fuckin' easy."

"Mmm, he smells _divine,_" a woman moaned, and Naruto's imagination supplied him with a vision of plump lips bitten by a set of white teeth. His breath hitched.

"Orochimaru, you fuckin' fag. Shut the hell up."

He still couldn't breathe. _What the fuck?_

"Silence, you fools. We do not have the luxury of time."

Frosty clamps fastened themselves around his biceps, and it was so cold he couldn't feel his skin. With the little sight available to him, Naruto realized with a detached horror that the icy feeling wasn't from steel, it was from a pair of hands. Hands with scales.

_What the fuck?_

His breathing was made even more difficult; a rough scrap of cloth was fastened around his mouth and tied painfully tight.

The first one who spoke was suddenly louder. "_This_ is the fox?" A sharp kick hit his ribs, and Naruto was reunited with the wet tar with an explosion of _hurt._ His bones sang in pain as the skin of his cheek scraped the ground. "He's a fuckin' _pansy_!" the voice boomed with harsh chuckles, and it was joined with other snickering laughs. Naruto wanted to plant a fist in the shmuck's mouth who dared to punch him when unarmed and disadvantaged - it was one of his biggest morals; never harm someone who is defenseless - but he couldn't muster the energy needed to simply lift himself up. Or move his jaw to cuss that motherfucker back to his pit in the ground. Or twitch a finger. Or move.. any part of his body.

Naruto panicked. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't do _anything_ as the ice-cold hands lifted him like a rag, harshly twisting his arms behind his back and snapping back his neck by the roots of his hair. Naruto's teeth were clenched as pain barraged his body and as cold _cold,_ _holyshit_ cold fingers brushed against his cheek. Softly, almost like a lover. It made his skin crawl.

"Do we _really_ have to do this now?" the woman whined, and Naruto dazedly guessed it was her fingers on his cheek. "I could have so much _fun..._" _What the fuck?_

"Orochimaru." This voice was low and deep, and cracked like a whip. It was commanding, frightening. Apparently Naruto wasn't the only one who thought so; Orochimaru withdrew her icicles from his face faster than he could snap his fingers.

"We do not. Have. _Time_." There was a snarl, and the snickering stopped dead. The scaly man holding Naruto shifted uncomfortably, still wrenching Naruto's head back and holding his arms at such an angle they would dislocate if Naruto so much as twitched - not that he could. His legs ached, his cheeks were numb, his arms were turning into the consistency of molten lava, and his throat was constricting steadily from whatever was in the air. His mind was frantically trying to come to a conclusion - okay: bad guys, dark alleys, horror movie-_rape_-scene... _ What the fuck?_ - but only the snide little voice spoke up: See? I _told'ya_ you should've just gone home.

There was a whine of metal, sounded like a sword had been drawn and scraped across the brick wall. The sudden noise made Naruto's already lightheaded mind wince and lose its hold on his thoughts, scattering them. The powerful arms detaining him suddenly picked him up, as if he weighed nothing, and tossed him, presumably to an adjacent asshole. Naruto unguardedly hit the wall with his head absorbing most of the impact; he saw stars, and Orochimaru must've made a reappearance, because one shoulder was numbing from the goddamn cold fingers again as he was roughly hoisted from the wet ground. His molten arms - _Jesusgodfucker, _the _pain_ - were slammed above his head, and Naruto felt his ribs ache as his shallow rendition of inhaling became impossibly painful.

Breathing harshly through his nose - which quickly proved ineffective as blood plugged both nostrils - Naruto squirmed with everything he had left to try and free an arm - which he couldn't feel anymore - unsuccessfully. He was gonna die, he was gonna _die,_ and he couldn't supply himself with enough oxygen to fight _back._

Those _fuckers, _Naruto raged weakly, his struggles slowly subsiding. A blackness was beginning to swallow his already limited sight, and his dry-heaving wheezes left him gasping for more air; _more air, _god, he couldn't _breathe. _

And then something cold and pointed came to a lazy rest just above his frantically beating heart. There was silence in the sad, soggy alleyway_,_ as if the occupants were collectively holding their breath.

"Farewell, Fox."

_What the fuck?_

He felt the sword leave his body, and heard intakes of air from every member of the group. Anticipation. He still couldn't breathe. His head ached.

Naruto closed his eyes.

Braced himself.

_Goddamn it!_

The blade cut a slow insert across his neck, before the man's fist audibly tightened, and Naruto could only dizzily stare at the place where the guy's head should be, gasping weakly through the bitter cloth. _Goddamn_ _it._

But his execution was interrupted. There was a howl of rage, a dull thud, and a snarl from the man with the sword.

And then the agonizing pressure on his scalp was gone, the cold fingers were gone, his captors were _gone_, the suffocating feeling was sucked from his lungs and they begged his diaphragm to contract - but Naruto didn't take a breath.

He didn't have time to.

The sour bandana was thrust up and over his eyes and an incredible force crushed him to the wall, recaptured his wrists, and aligned its hips into his. Naruto was able to fleetingly think _not again_ before a bruising force pressed against his lips. It was a demanding kiss, and whoever it was knew damn well how to deliver. Dizzily, Naruto tried to keep up as his lips were sucked, bitten, nibbled, and licked until his heart throbbed inside its bruised ribcage, and as a tongue slicked over his molars, Naruto had to weakly admit that it was the hottest thing that he had ever experienced --

-- and then it was over. The talented mouth ripped away from him, and he _breathed,_ inhaling until he felt he could burst, but the crushing pressure was back before he could even reach for the cloth covering his eyes. Positioning itself against Naruto's trembling body, whoever it was whispered fervently in his ear: "_Run._"

And then reality caught up with Naruto. The crescendo of angry snarls and scraping of claws - or were they scales? - on the tar was deafening, his quivering body was threatening to shut down, and the hostile, metallic taste in the air was settling with an air of finality on his tongue.

Suddenly, the suffocating weight on his body body was lifted, and before Naruto could even turn to see his savior's face he was violently jerked to the side, just avoiding a backslash attack; the whine of metal meeting the wall left Naruto's ears ringing.

Snarling, "I said _go!_"

Naruto's body was hurled forward once again, and he felt icy fingers scratch at his bleeding scalp - Orochimaru - and then Naruto's survival instincts kicked in as he blindly hurled a fist, heard a satisfying _crack_ as he connected with someone's jaw - and then his shoes slapped the pavement and Naruto _ran._

* * *

This is a teaser more than anything else; a tow in the water, if you will. :3 If you liked it and want more/hated it and want me dead so I _can't_ write more - review?


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** Mmyeah – last update for a while, I'm guessing. This is all I have finished and written and (partially!) edited. :D By the way, my actions scenes _suck_.

* * *

Naruto's lungs heaved as he weakly collapsed to a stoop, clutching his knees for support. Holy _cow,_ but he was tired. The raw, primal terror that he had felt while fleeing the scene had pumped his body with enough adrenaline to carry him six miles. It was wearing down, though, as was Naruto's string of rational thought.

As he panted beneath the looming spires of the local church, Naruto allowed himself to catch up on what had just happened. Though his mind had ceased to bleat _what the fuck?_, it reiterated the foul language as soon as Naruto reached the conclusion of his review.

He had just received the hottest kiss in his entire _life_. And he lacked the brain cells to find out who she was.

_You are _such_ a dumbass,_ he snarled at himself, shoulder hitting the crumbly stone wall he'd been inching towards, and Naruto allowed himself to slide down and rest. Exhausted, Naruto was still sucking in more air than an airline jet engine - but at least he could breathe. His legs were thrumming from carrying his weight during his marathon run, his goddamn toes were _still_ tingling, his arms were numbing (which, Naruto could admit, was a whole lot better than feeling like his armpits were volcanoes and his arms the frikkin' _lava_), his neck stung from the attempted manslaughter, and, to top it all off, it was _freezing._ Tucking his legs in, Naruto hugged his knees, burrowed into his flimsy jacket, and settled down to glower.

_Dumbass,_ he repeated. Annoyed that he had lost such a willing osculator, Naruto tried to placate himself by pick out details he'd seen - _oop, scratch that, couldn't see anything_. So he concentrated on what he _did_ remember: cold fingers, inability to breathe (he wondered if the thugs had used some form of.. mustard gas, or something. But he wasn't dead, so...), the sharp sting the swordwound released, and a searing smooch.

_Mmm._ Naruto was distracted again, and he closed his eyes and furrowed his brow in thought. She had been... cold. But not _obnoxiously_ cold, like that bastardwoman, Orochumeroo, or whatever, was. He just remembered her tongue being a wonderful contrast from his naturally too-warm body. And she had been _strong,_ to hold him to the wall like she had - in Naruto's defense, he _had_ just been assaulted by the mob - and her voice. Naruto unconsciously licked his chapped lips at the memory; the woman had a voice that belonged in some dominatrix's voicebox. Deep, husky--

"HOLY SHIT."

Naruto's spine stiffened as he shot up like a bullet, eyes wide. Holy _shit!_ He had _left_ her there! _Alone!_ To take on a hood from the city _mob!_

"You are such a fuckin' _asshole!_" he berated himself, looking devastated at the cracked sidewalk - as if it would grace him with a look of sympathy.

He wondered if she was okay - if she was even alive. He had fought off some husslers in the past, but, Naruto hadn't even stood a chance against _one_ of those goons. What kind of odds did a woman have?

As Naruto smacked himself for the sexist comment, rubble trickled down from the top of the deteriorating wall he was crouched against. Most of it landed atop his head of hair, and Naruto rubbed it off irritably before another shower doused him. Scowling, Naruto noisly scraped his shoes on the ground as he turned around and looked up, about to give a piece of his mind to the architecture.

He... wasn't expecting a stone monster to be staring back at him.

It watched him for a moment with its empty stone eyesockets. And then it flapped its massive rock wings and sank its claws into the soft stone before lowering into a crouch. The gargoyle's beak opened to release a dusty screech that ricocheted with a painfully high-pitched echo into Naruto's abused eardrums and the streets.

Naruto's jaw fell open.

"_What the fuck?!_"

* * *

Naruto slammed the door shut, palms clammy and arms trembling as he pushed with all his might against the aging wood. After a satisfying _thunk_ filtered through the door with an enraged, muffled scream, Naruto allowed himself a smirk and a brief respite. He slunk bonelessly to the floor, chest heaving, feeling completely spent. And pissed.

"If somebody has a vendetta against me, will he _please_ get his ass in here so I can kick it?" He panted. And paused. And looked around.

The holy place was devoid of any signs of life - just cold, cold stone. Statues of dead saints seemed to glare straight through Naruto's shivering form with piercing, solemn expressions. One of them clutched a sword in a huge stone hand; Naruto found himself taking a long look at the carving of the bearded man, his imagination taking wild turns through the impossible - what if_ that_ thing attacked him just like that _other_ statue had? There was a significant difference in size going on here. Naruto was confident in his fighting abilities, like against the cornering bastards back there (_even though you almost died_, his inner voice whispered snidely), but he wasn't about to subject himself to a sword _that_ size. His mind instantly began planning an escape route based on a hypothesized fighting style that the giant beardman might use - when Naruto stopped himself, shaking his head lightly. _Your luck's bad, man, but not bad enough to change the laws of nature._

He turned back to the center area, wondering why there weren't any altarboys around, or a minister, or a janitor. It was a Sunday night - wasn't that the religious day for Catholics, or something? Naruto's toes tingled as he approached the altar, and he hoped it was just the cold - when he saw the necklace.

It wasn't anything special - a plain, stocky glass oval held together with a weak chain. It wasn't even on some stand with an inexplicable light source illuminating it from the sky, like all the B-rated movies Naruto had guffawed at. It was lying on the stone floor, gently curving around one of the wooden pew legs, looking dirty and forgotten.

But it was _glowing._

Naruto's eyes were dazzled by the buttery-yellow color that resonated from the tacky piece of jewelry, ignoring the warning bells that sounded off in his mind. All the oddities of the day, all of the jaw-dropping feats he'd seen that only Hollywood could successfully pull off, even that amazing, soul-sucking kiss he'd received - all of it became dull and insignificant. A silly smile spread over his face as Naruto reached out to pick up the shining object. He could feel heat radiating from the glass centerpiece as his fingerpads slipped over it in wonder, and his smile grew as he plucked the necklace from its sooty standing, lightly blowing on it for an impromptu cleaning. He felt so cozy... except for his damn _toes_.

And then there was an echoing crash.

Followed by a deep, dusty moan.

And then: silence.

As Naruto spun around,he wondered if that stupid gargoyle was back for another round, and he also wondered if that gorgeous _babe_ was back for another round, and his snide subconscious asked him if he still retained sanity after thinking a dirty old necklace had been glowing _yellow,_ of all things,and Naruto told his conscious to shove it - but all thoughts silenced as Naruto completed his 180 degree spin.

The old king's statue was glaring at him.

Naruto's jaw dropped.

And the point of a stone sword was aimed straight at his heart.

* * *

_Okay, Naruto,_ he coached himself, collapsed behind a stone column and on the verge of a mental meltdown, _you can do this. You can _do_ this._

The stone king was searching for him, occasionally bellowing out an unearthly moan that scared Naruto out of his wits. Shortly after Naruto's life had almost ended for the third time that night (and after Naruto had decided his luck had completely overrun _any_ chance at survival he had remaining), the statue's sword had collapsed on itself, the sheer weight of the concrete snapping the weapon in half. It had confused the giant long enough for Naruto to move faster than he had ever moved in his life to the ambulatory ringing the church's nave. It sported stone pillars that were spaced so closely together that Naruto had little (physical) trouble dodging the living monument that was hunting him.

Naruto tried not to dwell on that too much. A _statue_ - an inanimate _object -_ was _chasing--_ no, no, nevermind.

Regardless of the perpetrator, he couldn't keep doing this all night. Naruto wasn't sure he could take much more abuse - first the misadventures of Sakura's anniversary, and then the mustard gas he was supposed to _die _from, coupled with attempted manslaughter - which he was saved from by a dominatrix (who _else_ could have that kind of strength?) who devastated him with the most arousing kiss he'd ever received - and now the _architecture_ was springing up to attack him. Not to mention his mental instability after seeing a junky necklace _glow_ like a friggin' firefly.

Naruto flicked a quick glance to his fist, the chain twirled around his fingers. The necklace's focal point, a chipped fragment of glass, looked dull and sad, and was distinctly _reflecting_ the meager light instead of producing its own. Naruto stared at it, wondering why on earth he still had it in his possession, when he realized what the necklace was displaying.

It was an unmistakable reflection of the stone king.

Yowling, Naruto launched himself to the right as he felt the shockwaves of the statue's fist collide with his hideout. The pillar crumbled, and Naruto felt the grit enter his eyes and tasted concrete on his tongue before his neck snapped back as he crashed into the wall.

His eyes watered; he couldn't see. Stumbling blindly into the compressing space beneath the pews, Naruto was inspired to new heights of strength when an angry bellow rang his ears like a gong and the stone king's fist was lifted once again. Naruto's palms clawed through the rubble as he heaved himself to the next row of pews, hearing the impossible effigy shift and crumble its stone muscles, preparing to strike another blow onto his soft, flesh-body.

_Oh shit, oh shit, h-holy _shit, _ohh f--_

As he felt the cold, cold,_ frosty_ cold breath shudder from the statue and hit his neck, Naruto's mind went white. His body began to work on pure instinct. His hands, bloody and losing the top layer of skin, hauled him forward with shaking arms while his legs shoved desperately against a broken armrest of a pew, and his entire body went rigid as the king's fist came whistling down.

It was like an explosion, like someone had just launched a grenade at close range. His ears popped with a high-pitched whine that ripped his eardrums until blood leaked out his ears, his skin felt liquefied, and his whole being _throbbed_ as his heart rate skyrocketed with the deafening bellow that was _right above him._

Urged by his body's internal want of survival, Naruto realized that the stone king had missed - missed by goddamn _inches_ - and he was still breathing. _He was still breathing._

_Holy crap, Naruto! GO!_ he screamed at himself, and Naruto clamped an arm around a gnarled steel rod - once a support of a collapsed column - and breathlessly dragged his bleeding body away from the epicenter of the statue's fist.

... but he didn't move.

Close to hyperventilation, Naruto twisted his torso around to locate the problem. His legs were clamped under the weight of concrete slabs from the destroyed wall of the church. Naruto almost sobbed; he was stuck, he was _trapped,_ and, goddamnit, the stone giant was lifting its fist for the final blow and he could've sprinted to the doorway, it was so close.

So close.

As Naruto watched the statue's fist's ascent with resigned eyes, his sarcasm shook off the panic binding it, and he briefly reflected. This had been, by far, the shittiest day of his entire life. This day had been so far _beyond_ the laws of karma that it borderlined on godly grudge.

And as the pantagruelian rock fist shuddered to a halt, knuckles scraping the ceiling of the church, and as Naruto looked into the cold stone eyes of the lifeless king - 'cause he's _dead, _you dumbass, he's a goddamn _statue_ - Naruto remembered he was supposed to ask himself what his biggest regret was during one of these live or die situations he'd read superheroes grapple with on a daily basis.

Fingers tightening with a crusty groan, the statue hurled its mighty mitt straight for Naruto - dusty, dirty Naruto who was shuddering in a sick sweat, pinned like a stuck pig and completely and utterly without a hope in the world - and then he realized something.

A long, long time ago, back when life was still full of crayons and split lips and gritty lollipops (because he couldn't afford his own) and lost teeth (because he didn't know how to defend himself), Naruto had made himself a promise. The forgotten orphanage had many niches and dusty, undiscovered hallways that Naruto had been forced to learn. Many children before him had discovered the locations as well - the role of dead last had to be replaced every time it was vacated, after all.

It was in the rotting cupboard shelves below the kitchen that Naruto found himself: a Batman comicbook.

He based his entire life around those pictures for seven years. He learned to snarl, to stand up for himself, and to roundhouse kick. And after being punished by the matron for kicking the fat bully's ass until it was bloody, Naruto looked at his fists, stained red, and promised himself he'd never cower from his enemies again.

And now, look at him. He hadn't even _considered_ going out with a bang, like his favorite superheroes that he had worshipped as a child, dreamed of being like: revered, fearless, _godlike_. But he had been too busy running like a weepy little tadpole and cowering under a ruined house of god - as if he wanted divine intervention, as if he _believed_ in it.

The fist was getting closer.

_Oh, what a legacy _you'll _have,_ the sly voice smirked inside his head. And Naruto realized that the voice in his head was right. What kind of self-respecting _lionheart _squealed in the face of danger and got bested by a handful of punks and a giant _rock_?

Angrier more with himself than his impending demise, Naruto threw back a fist, clenched his eyes tight, and screamed, "YOU EVIL _FUCK_!"

Of course, because Naruto's eyes were shut, he failed to notice the air swirl thickly around his person, almost as if a dense stew was cooking in the breeze. Or the fact that his knuckles were glowing a light blue, as was his junky necklace, which had sliced into his fingers with the dull chain wound as snugly as it was.

However, Naruto did notice the ear-splitting _boom_ that followed his eloquent communiqué, as well as the rubble that peppered him from all sides. When Naruto opened his eyes, he found that his vision had been drastically reduced by the roiling clouds of dust that settled thickly into his mouth and eyeballs; coughing, Naruto swore. He squeezed his eyes shut and ducked down, avoiding more airborne debris that were causing fresh aches all over.

For a terrifying ten seconds, it felt like the earth was shaking; the abused stone floor Naruto was crouched on (his legs still annoyingly pinned) rumbled unpleasantly, as if the planet was having a severe bout of indigestion, and the iron chandeliers swinging from the ceiling creaked and groaned unpleasantly, and Naruto half expected one to fall and crush his skull as a final taste of irony from his damned detestable luck.

Naruto, dazed and dizzy, wondered if this part of the world was _supposed_ to have earthquakes. Then he realized he was dreaming - or was perhaps already dead - because nobody's past life's mistakes could chalk up to this much _bad._ And, he continued his argument, risking a peek from his sloppy fetal position, people just didn't _see_ glowing colors from inconceivable light sources - like his piece-of-crap necklace, or the dazzling burst of starshine that gushed out _from_ his piece-of-crap necklace and sailed across the church's inner sanctum, illuminating the old bricks with gentle pulses until the cinderblocks shimmered like diamonds while simultaneously expunging the clouds of dust, as though light could be a vacuum. Nope - that, Naruto knew, was impossible.

And Naruto had most certainly _not_ defeated a fifteen-foot stone statue with a sucker punch. Couldn't've.

Naruto kept repeating the same words to himself - _Not possible. Couldn't've_ - over and over again as he gaped at the pile of rock that had previously been his relentless pursuer in complete disbelief. Even while the deep blue lightwave continuously pulsed back and forth along the church's rickety ceiling, maintaining the ancient bricks' stunning new form, and even while the necklace healed his bleeding fingers with a soothing sort of warmth, almost like an apology, Naruto couldn't rouse himself from his shocked stupor.

That was how he was found - alone, surrounded by the ruins of half the church's belly, pinioned by a gnarled steel rod, and staring in a stupefied shock at a pile of rock while a wave of blue light mapped the ceiling and refueled the church's twinkling walls, which were trying their hardest to manifest into diamonds.

Even the stranger, as long as he had wandered the earth, had to suck in a breath at the sight. But time was of the essence, and he retained very little to negotiate with.

The stranger glided over the massacred walls soundlessly, as though he walked upon soft underbelly plumes rather than rubble. Naruto didn't stir from his slack-jawed state even when the man slid into his direct line of sight, candidly illuminated from the flashes under the soft blue light. The brief flares revealed a face that was too perfect to be human with eyes too cold to be kind. The man's thin, aristocratic features were furrowed in thought and mild confusion; normally, pulsating light shows were not enough to completely ensnare a mortal's mind to the point of no recognition to an obvious threat - they had fireworks, afterall. Perhaps his enemies had reached the human before he could, which instantly put the stranger on edge. And yet, after a quick perusal of the scene, no one could be found and there was no metallic residue from any castings of curses or spells. It was perplexing, which rankled the man's fleeting patience.

He idly planted a boot on the slab of rock that held his victim captive and kicked it down with a little pressure from his big toe, casting a simple shield to block the inevitable dust from settling near his person. There was no change in the blond man's expression. The stranger knelt down on one knee - something he deigned to do very rarely - and examined the stupefied mortal with narrowed eyes, even going so far as to snap his fingers a few times. No change, no recognition.

Thoroughly irritated, the man scowled and snarled, "_Awake_!" It was to his great surprise that Naruto immediately snapped his eyes into focus and exhaled with a large _huff_, suddenly gasping for air as if he'd just surfaced from a deep, lightless ocean. Which, the stranger speculated, he probably had.

But the time for games was over. The stranger gave the mortal a generous five seconds to catch his breath before moving in, clutching the flimsy neck and slamming the equally insubstantial body against the very rock that had pinned him from his previous outlet of escape. He squeezed the human's neck hard enough to show that he was not one to mess with, yet lax enough to avoid being encumbersome to the necessary act of breathing - an act so easily silenced that it only proved humans all the weaker.

However, the stranger noted, with some satisfaction, that he now held the human's undivided attention. He was momentarily startled by the bold color of his captive's eyes - but he had no time.

"I will make this brief," he said in a low voice, and the blue light flickered overhead which allowed Naruto to gape at his latest attacker's face in unsuppressed astonishment. "You will cooperate if you know what's good for you."

Honestly, Naruto thought (and he was im_pressed_ at how unruffled his mind was at such a time of crisis, because _he_ sure as hell didn't feel calm), it couldn't possibly get any worse. _The hero miraculously survived only to die at the hands of a newcomer prettyboy,_ the inner voice sneered and lazily rolled over.

Well. He _was_ pretty - at least, he was a bit easier on the eyes than a giant stone statue. But this was no time for reflections on the coldness of his bed, Naruto thought, and proceeded to give the unnaturally attractive man his answer.

Naruto flipped him the finger and kneed him in the groin before swinging his legs around and aiming for the back of the knees (since he couldn't reach the guy's ankles), already bracing his feet for landing on the ground and preparing to make a mad sprint for the door.

Of course, none of this supposed plan happened. The stranger grunted and mildly deflated his rigid posture but never relinquished his grip on Naruto's neck - he tightened it, in fact, and Naruto's would-be back-attack was quashed as he was roughly slammed back into the rock, which began to dig unmercifully into his abused spine. But his back was the least of Naruto's worries; the stranger's eyes, as the overhead light pulsed by again, were sharp with the promise of danger.

"That was _not_ a smart move," Naruto's captive hissed. The stranger - and Naruto couldn't figure out how he'd done it so damn _fast_ - swapped his hand for his elbow, effectively freeing both hands and pinning Naruto's trembling body to the unforgiving slab of rock. The man leaned his face in close, so close that Naruto - who was gritting his teeth so hard it hurt, masking his outbursts of pain; he refused to give this asshole the _pleasure_ - could feel... feel this _cold_ that exuded from the guy's body. It was unnatural, whatever caused it, like the guy had downed one too many cold ones before terrorizing the neighborhood with his smelly breath--

Only... the guy wasn't breathing.

_Holy shit,_ his mind supplied helpfully.

An abrupt eruption of pain fired into his sixteenth vertebrae, and Naruto was readily distracted from the fact that his newest enemy did not appear to engage in respiratory actions. The man's cold body crushed him against the wall with an unfriendly smirk - and Naruto, despite the pain that burrowed its way through the pointy rocks in his backside, could not help but feel that the act was strangely... familiar.

He was distracted again when the stranger cruelly increased the pressure against his windpipe. "Where is Itachi?" the man demanded with a snarl - were those _fangs?!_ "Where is my duplicitous brother?"

* * *

Original, I know. Review? ;D


	3. Chapter 3

**Note:** Well. Uh. My excuse: all my profs decided to split their finals in half. That's cool, that's cool – only they all did it at the same time. 'Been studying my ass off, but!, this was a welcome thing t'do during the breaks. :D

* * *

The grip of waxy fingers squeezing his neck was not an unfamiliar feeling. Naruto, whose own fingers were slowly going lax around the jerkoff's wrists because of lack of air supply (and _gee,_ but didn't that bring on a wave of déjà vu?), was reminded again of his childhood where he was spat on and hated for no other discernable reason than his shoes were untied (so far as Naruto's child-numbed mind could tell).

He remembered his first day of school. Armed with nothing but a smile, Naruto had marched into the brick building with a determination to show the population housed in it the world. Instead, the teacher punished him with open mocks and scowls and the kids, feeding off the negative energy, jeered and laughed. But he never stopped smiling - even when the bullies brought a gun to school and tried to kill him in the alley during recess. Naruto doesn't remember anything about that (Tues)day either, except that he woke up in his parents' arms with a face wet with their bitter tears. But he smiled for them, because they loved him. And he knew that.

And one day Naruto stopped smiling. It was the same day he was struck by lightning and his parents died. It was the same day he was introduced to his uncle in a courtroom; Naruto remembers Mizuki's smile was as slick and shiny as the polished floor when the jury (who all sneered at him) ruled that Naruto hadn't a penny to his name. And it was the first day he saw people screaming his name from the other side of mirrors. It had been the worst day of his life.

And after that, after Naruto's last physical defense against the world crumbled, he found himself subjected to unrestricted human cruelty in the form of a child's chubby arms. The bully kid had held him just like this bastard did (only his fingers had been warm and pulsing). All Naruto remembers about _that_ day is that he was so angry and his hands were stained red and the matron refused to look at him and crossed herself with trembling hands when she thought he wasn't looking and he never saw the kid again.

But Naruto remembered that he hated this position - this humiliating pose of forced submission. And the snide voice in his head chuckled as Naruto's fingers snapped closed and he growled.

If the man was surprised by his sudden spurt of strength, he did not show it. Instead, he crushed the exhausted body further into the rock before hissing, "I will not ask again. Where is Itachi?"

Naruto scowled, eyes as closed as his air pipe. "I don't _know_, asshole."

He almost died. The icy fingers squeezed so hard that Naruto's mind was wiped clean for a terrifying five seconds before he was thrown into the ground.

"Do not _lie_, human," the man spat at Naruto, who was coughing weakly as dust coated his bleeding lips and made them sting. "_You_ were in contact with his subordinates - under one of his ridiculous curses. And now I find you in a _church_," he snarled the word, "which is one of his only weaknesses. You have been in contact."

His words rang throughout the destroyed church like a dying musical note. The two odd individuals shared a moment of silence, both glowering as darkly as they could (although Naruto's was aimed at the rubble), until the man broke it when he smirked. Naruto, still massaging his neck, caught a glimpse of a fang. "You cannot seriously believe thatyou could fool me."

Naruto (still pretty convinced that he was dreaming) slapped a clammy palm on the wreckage of the church and lifted himself painfully from the ground. The man watched in interest as Naruto balanced his violently trembling body on rickety legs - and now the human's frailties became starkly apparent to him. Bruises, blood, broken bones; he knew his brother's way of attacking and was unpleasantly reminded of how sick it was because it was so carefully executed as to leave no physical marks (but _plenty_ of mental ones). Itachi was not the cause of this human's pain. After another quick glance around the room, the man deduced that no relation of _his_ would create such a mess, either. He had to wonder, then, what had happened. He also had to wonder why Itachi was so interested in this human who was unremarkable in everything - except perhaps his corporeal features--

But there was no time.

The pale man tsked at the human who was still gasping like a dying fish on the shore. This had become tedious; the interrogation was supposed to be quick and easy, just as he liked things. But this inferior life form had actual brass – something he did not expect, as that trait was as unprepossessing as sunlight to his brother and, so far as he knew, his brother's allies. Annoyed, the man glowered with a pair of piercing red eyes at the human and demanded an answer. But he was momentarily caught in a rare stun as Naruto turned the full force of his (_blue_) eyes against the man's in a cold stare.

"Look, you bastard," he snapped in a chopped and scratchy voice, forcing his spine to straighten so he could look the man in the eye, "I don't _know_ what you're talking about, and you c'n bet your pasty ass that I'd never tell you anything even if I _did_ know. So fuck off."

He waved an obscene gesture at him for added emphasis, stood up tall and heard his bones realign with painful cracks, and threw the guy the best arrogant grin he'd ever graced the world with -- before collapsing to the ground in an unconscious heap.

Later, after many coaxes, a couple shoulder rubs and many more beers, all Naruto could remember after collapsing was a brilliant blue light, cool hands on his cheeks, and a distinct lack of tingling from his feet.

* * *

Naruto woke up in an unfamiliar bed tangled in unfamiliar sheets that smelled distinctly of gardenias – a very unfamiliar scent. He was in a room that was so obviously a woman's that Naruto was now _completely_ convinced that he was still dreaming; waking up in someone else's bed was so groundbreaking that he couldn't even consider the possibility.

Shakily disentangling himself from the purple-starred sheets, Naruto sat up and scrubbed his face with sweaty palms. _You're still dreaming,_ he told himself firmly. _You've overreacted with Sakura and are having karmic dreams about bodacious babes and mobsters who employ giant rocks to off you - and now one-night-stands._

Naruto inwardly hoped he was having a fling with his imaginary (and amazingly good-kisser) woman instead of an expired king's statue.

Dropping his hands into his lap and hoping his imagination didn't have a vendetta against him like the rest of the world did, Naruto couldn't help but marvel at his unconscious's attention to detail. The room was themed with royal purple and... glitter. Beside the twin bed he was seated on, there was a purple nightstand with a shaggy lampshade that illuminated the stickers of constellations on the ceiling. Everything in the room sparkled or twinkled or, in some cases, _winked._ He had even thought out the trim of the floor (a deep shade of mulberry; matched the fuzzy phone on the wall).

But, somehow, something was off_. _After a quick examination of the bedroom, Naruto could've sworn it was Ino's. Which was too much of a weird idea to even consider - _I'm having a romp with an imaginary woman in Ino's room?_ And, if this _was _his subconscious, why was he waking up alone? Where was his gorgeous, fictitious bombshell?

Almost immediately after the thought occurred, the (purple) door slammed open to reveal a curvy, well-endowed woman.

Unfortunately, she was _not_ the woman Naruto had been hoping to see.

"_Ino?!_" Naruto yowled, jaw lax.

"NARUTO."

Ino's teeth were bared in a snarl. Both of her arms were raised to block the door, muscles taught and quivering with the force of the woman's anger.

_Not good!_ Naruto squeaked.

Ino appeared to be gnashing her teeth as she approached the terrified male on her bed, footsteps heavy and a fierce look in her eyes. Naruto inwardly squealed _Holy shit!_, before scrambling backwards to the headboard, putting as much space between himself and the furious woman. It didn't help him; Ino only appeared to get angrier. After Ino ate the expanse of (purple) shag carpet between them, planted two fists into his aching body, and took a deep inhale to begin a scream, Naruto seriously considered her to be more frightening than Sakura.

"WHAT THE _HELL,_ NARUTO_?" _His eardrums rang in the aftermath of Ino's scream. "First, Sakura calls me, _bawling,_ saying what a scumbag you are- mind you, _I'm toning this down,_ you asshole--" Naruto felt a drop of airborne saliva land on his cheek, as well as a fist in his gut, "-- accusing me of having an _affair_ with you, of all things, and _then_," she shoved him hard, and his head ricocheted painfully off the headboard, "I find you _bleeding_ on my goddamn porch_, _unconscious, with _broken bones._" Ino knocked him back into the bed again with a force that was unfairly bestowed upon angry women. "Naruto - I thought you were _dead,_ your neck looked snapped and it was _purple_--"

Naruto belatedly noticed that Ino was crying. Sucking in a rattled breath and shoving Naruto's chest again, Ino bit her lips and whispered, "what the _hell,_ Naruto?" Bracing himself for another haymaker when she moved to punch him again, Naruto instead found himself with an armful of a weepy blonde girl whose hands were gripping his (torn and bloody - when did _that _happen?) shirt like a lifeline, soaking it with tears.

"_Damn it,_ Naruto!" she cried into his stomach, weakly punching him in the side and taking in deep, gasping breaths. Ino, as proud as she was, could never control her crying. It always sounded like hyperventilation. "I-I," another feeble punch in his gut, "I was so worried," she whispered.

Naruto collected his friend into a hug, which was tightly reciprocated, and began to gently rock her from side to side as she cried. With the immediate danger gone, Naruto was suddenly aware of how bone-achingly _tired _he was, as well as how much pain he was in.

No wonder Ino was sobbing - he must have scared her half to death in his condition.

The most prominent pain was coming from his chest, which was being abused by the sobbing weight of another body. He could feel crusting blood all over himself - his head, his back, his goddamn feet - as well as aches and pains from obviously sore, bruised or broken tissue. Naruto considered himself lucky for a rare moment. Ino was a medical student, well on her way to passing her BOARDS and snatching an RN degree that she'd been fantasizing about since she met a dreamy doctor in the eleventh grade. Without her medical smarts, he might not've been so fortunate as to be conscious.

_But holy hell_, he thought, dazed, as he reclined further back to better support Ino's trembling body. _What the hell hit me? Those thugs?_

But he could've sworn it was all a dream - Sakura, the muggers, the _kiss_ (ohh, he wished that wasn't), the damn gargoyles and the pompous jerk-slash-murderer - but Ino. Ino waylaid that hopeful dream with the beginnings of a rant - _Sakura called, called you a scumbag--_

Sakura, the kindest person Naruto had ever met (they'd started dating after an unfortunate series of clumsy events that lost Naruto's job as a waiter and gained him a girlfriend), and by far the most forgiving. Out of the blue, with hardly anything to give her argument substance, Sakura had called him a cheat, a liar, a being that was lower than pus that spent its life feeding on fungi in the depths of night. _Sakura_ had said this.

And then, by some means, he'd arrived at Ino's doorstep looking like (from what he could tell) death warmed over. He had _broken bones, _with a possible neck brace to match. And all he had to show for them were dreams about fantastical and lunatic circumstances.

Somehow, Naruto figured that all this was somewhat beyond the grasp of his unfathomable bad luck.

He felt Ino sock him weakly in the side once more, felt (not heard) a great, final sniffle, and then felt the weight of his friend's body reorganizing itself above him as she sat up, wiping her swollen eyes.

"Stupid bastard," she hiccupped, wetly sniffing and sucking in gasping breaths, threatening to start the water works all over again. Nonetheless, Naruto was touched. He felt like an asshole to admit it, but, he was grateful for Ino's tears; it was a reminder that people still cared for him, despite his unattractive history which frequently got people into more trouble than he was worth.

He gave her another appreciative hug and felt Ino sigh into his chest, relieved, before straightening and giving him a very stern, very angry look.

"Okay, buster," she snipped, poking him roughly in his (bruised and abused and _oww_) chest, "_you _have some serious explaining to do."

Wincing, Naruto gave a watery version of his trademark cheeky grin before embarking on the impossible. _Explain_ what had happened? Exactly what _had _happened? His mind worked fast - under the circumstances, the idea of trying to convince her that he'd been abducted by aliens was, in Naruto's opinion, an acceptable speed to work with - but nothing tangible surfaced, and Ino was a hard woman to fool.

So he settled with the truth. It'd get him into far less trouble in the long run, since his memory was so abysmal he'd be lucky to be compared to a goldfish. The lies that spewed from his mouth were like a doomed game of genga; people were just waiting for the inevitable fall.

Rubbing the back of his head in his _gee, I'm sorry_ gesture (his fingers coasted over a large goose egg; _is that a concussion?_), Naruto chuckled weakly before admitting, "I, uh, don't know."

There was silence in the room. A suffocating, _oh shit_ kind of silence that made Naruto perspire and his blood pressure shoot up. He didn't dare open his eyes to look at the fury that Ino was certainly exhibiting - she was a woman who unabashedly showed what she felt.

Naruto hadn't been punched that hard in a long, long time.

His head knocked against the headboard again, smack dab on the lump swelling on the back of his skull, but Naruto wasn't given enough time to react with a yowl; Ino was plowing straight into round two with a knucklesandwich to his jaw.

He ended up on the (purple) floor, in more pain than he'd been in during his (fictional?) dual with a giant stone statue. Ino loomed overhead, casting him in shadow, eyes narrow and glinting. Naruto did the only valiant thing left available to him: he whimpered.

"What the _hell_ do you mean, 'you don't know'?" Ino snarled, and Naruto was left with a sense of dejá vu as he was herded into a corner by the enraged woman. "You - you have broken ribs, Naruto, a fucking _concussion_," and Naruto quietly said to himself, _I_ _knew it._ "You have to have some idea of what happened, you ass. Don't lie to me."

There was another silence, which threatened to become another _oh shit_ silence if Naruto didn't say something. He furiously dragged up a few of his old lies that had, on occasion, worked.

"I, uh - I was... working. One of the crates fell off the crane and, well," he motioned to himself. That actually wasn't a falsification; Naruto _had_ been standing underneath a newbie's first operation of a crane. He'd been out cold for a week and a half.

Ino raised an eyebrow. She planted her fists on hips, and bent down to stare him straight in the eye. Naruto briefly noted that her stance, though it provided ample eyecandy by means of her bosom, was mildly terrifying. "Nice try, Naruto. You haven't worked in a warehouse in five months."

_Aw, crap--_ "I - I fell down some stairs."

"Stop quoting bad fiction by suicidal teenagers and _tell me what happened."_

But that was an impossible request, so Naruto blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Yesterday - which seemed like a lifetime ago - Naruto had come across some unexpected downtime and had indulged himself in the wonders of television's infatuation with terrible, B-rated movies. Monday nights were infamously labeled gangster turf, and Naruto had enthusiastically watched. Ignoring the world around him as he perched on the shoddy couch he had inherited from the kind social worker (Iruka, who had been kinder to him than his own parents), he wasted the day away, occasionally swapping positions and add some much-needed flair to the viewing experience.

His mind, bruised and battered and too confused to puzzle through the mysteries that plagued him and his concussion or his bloody shirt, could only manage to pop an image of Al Capone chewing a cigar and slurring with a emphatic gesture, "I don't mean no disrespect…"

"I - I JOINED THE MOB."

* * *

_That_, Naruto reflected as he crossed the busy street, _might not've been the best thing to say._

Almost a full seventy-six hours had passed since his unfortunate blurt and Ino still refused to talk to him.

The worst part was that she had believed him - to an extent. After Ino'd sufficiently terrorized him with one of her infamous stony silences, she had advanced into physical violence. She began with his clothing (which was... perhaps _why_ Sakura thought some hanky-panky was going on), and Naruto missed Ino's shocked expression because he had wasted no time in balling himself into the fetal position and, remembering his self-defense (or, as a long-dead friend once commented, 'ass-saving techniques') classes, clapped his arms over his head and waited for the megaton to drop.

"You - you got a _tattoo?_"

He'd spent the remainder of the night on Ino's porch nursing much more than a concussion.

Naruto obediently stopped at the crosswalk and settled into his semi-alert state of mind that he used on the streets; one eye was always watching the traffic, the other, people. Nothing earth shattering occurred on the corner of Fifth and France (except a _very_ nice '56 Thunderbird cruised past, making Naruto salivate), which left Naruto with a free mind to ponder his problems.

Like… how he got a tattoo grafted onto his stomach with no memory of the event.

Absently rubbing his abdomen and scraping his shoe on the curb to free himself from the sticky clutches of a piece of chewing gum, Naruto puzzled this as he crossed the street, on his way to work. Perhaps he had been slipped some kind of drug on his way back to Sakura that night; anything, Naruto had learned, was possible. The sobbing cabby could've easily done it – but he doubted it, the guy was too emotionally unstable. Seasoned actors couldn't've opened up _that _big of a sluice gate.

He bit his thumbnail, tossing out the idea that he'd become infected with a disease that caused short-term memory loss (coupled with erratic teenage behavior – such as getting a tattoo), and found himself back where he started; when did he get a tattoo?

Well – perhaps that's not the best thing to be wondering, he thought, eyes following the awkward sashay of a blonde young woman wearing too high heels and too little clothing on such a windy day. He guiltily thought of Sakura and wondered what she knew. Did she know he was rooming with Ino? (Sometimes on her couch and mostly on her porch, but, still). Did she know he had broken bones and a split skull? Did she _care?_ Did she want him back? Wait – was she sorry? He was sorry. He had no idea what he did, but he was sorry he'd ever left.

_Sakura called, called you a scumbag._

Naruto's foot sank deeply into a pothole filled with scummy water, so his unconscious's attention to detail was muted as he swore (_"Goddamnit!"_) at the sky. He missed the immobile stare that hadn't left his person since Naruto's gaze had been caught and captured by the young blonde woman's long legs. He missed the glaring detail of the man dressed completely in black following him because, in Naruto's wrestle with the concrete, he threw off his balance and ended up with his face planted in the crease of a woman's chest. He also missed the owner of the black clothes and unblinking eyes gliding – for the man made little noise – over the wet pavement toward Naruto, who was now bowing on the ground with one ankle twisted painfully in the clutches of the watery crater, begging for forgiveness and suffering blows from the woman's handbag.

The woman, who was well past her prime and had tucked away a few too many servings of pudding, wailed _rape!_ and slammed her purse down on Naruto's skull, making his head spin with the added pain to his concussion. His hands did little good protecting him; they were riddled with cuts and abrasions, many of which were infected (Ino, her mascara running sloppily down her cheeks, had slammed him out onto the porch after he declared himself a mobster. He hadn't wanted to push his luck and ask for a couple band-aids) and produced more pain than his head when deflecting blows.

"J-Jesus, lady, I—"

"_Ruffian!"_ she screeched, blasting him with another round.

The man slunk past the droves of people populating the city street, raising the hood from his commonplace sweatshirt to cover a stocky red haircut and green eyes that had sunk deep into the sockets, a tried-and-true attribute of an insomniac. He twitched his pinky and immediately the crosswalks were green-lighted; traffic paused in a confused and honking mess as pedestrians hollered and banged on the hoods of cars.

The man crossed underneath the traffic lights.

"Ow!" Naruto, who had lost feeling in his fingertips and could only take note that his sock was soggy like his foster home breakfast cereal and his toes were tingly, (and wow, what was with all the _noise?_) received another blow.

The man brushed past a young blonde woman. He ignored the cacophony of noisy chaos in the streets as he stepped onto the curb that was less than twelve feet away from Naruto's awkwardly positioned form.

"_Lech!"_ Another smack. There was a prickling sensation in his sock, he noted dazedly. _Must've gotten a rock stuck in my shoe…_

The man silently approached. His cold fingers reached out, just managed to skim the longest strands of Naruto's blond hair, just managed to make contact with his index finger, just _managed_ to scrape the prize with a fingernail—

_"Pervert!"_ Naruto gaped as the woman roughly grabbed his collar and hoisted him off the ground, inadvertently freeing his foot from the watery depths (and ruining his shoe). The man's fingers slipped from Naruto's neck. He was unable to even reach the skin as Naruto was violently shaken two feet above the ground, and suddenly the man's face contorted with such raw anger that the veins on his forehead bulged with a sudden influx of blood; his glare was so poisonous that the woman's size thirteen heels fused with the pavement.

As the large woman squealed and fell over, Naruto's feet were assaulted with the pins and needles usually associated with cacti and suddenly his heart was pounding. He fell back to the ground and caught himself with his aching hands, and as he twisted around with wide eyes and searched for whatever had come to kill him (because the last time his feet and tingled this badly the bully had brought a gun to school), Naruto half expected to see another giant stone statue—

There was nothing there.

* * *

Okay, seriously – I want some criticism. What did you honestly not like?

(I'm also totally workin' on mah miss-tur-ee. :B Droppin' hints that are… probably negligible. ALL WILL BE REVEALED.)


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